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Monday, February 28, 2011

Don't you just hate people?

I was worried that I wouldn't have anything to post today - my last day of February posting. How wrong!

First, I just finished #31 - Three Came to Ville Marie, and I was pretty into it. It was good in a historical fiction kind of way.

So, I'll move on now to 32/73 The Fall of a Titan by Igour Gouzenko (1954).

But here's why I hate people. I had ordered a travel book for our upcoming trip to Seattle. A dumb little $11 book. I also ordered another book - a nice book about beautiful houses. This second book ensured my free Amazon shipping.

When I tracked the package on UPS it said they left it at the front door. After our lamps were left at the front door and nobody stole them, I wasn't worried about my books. Why should I? Who steals books?

When I came home there was an ugly fat man standing in the doorway. He was a mover, moving one of my neighbors out. He was gross and leery, so I quickly looked around for sign of my Amazon box, or a note from the UPS man saying where he left it - like they had done with the lamps. But there was nothing and I moved quickly upstairs away from the ugly fat man. Outside the apartment door: no sign of package. Weird, and slightly concerning. So, I waited about 20 minutes, and decided to go back downstairs to look for my box. There, lying on the floor in the vestibule was the house book. Sitting there, no box, on the floor. Someone had opened my package. One of the movers came downstairs at the point and asked if I was looking for my book, and I said yes, I had found one but there should have been two books. He said he found the empty box and threw it into the basement (why the basement? Why not the garbage?) He fetched the box, but there was no sign of book #2! He said maybe it was in the garbage out front, or maybe one of the other movers had seen it. But then, an even uglier mover with a greasy braided rat-tail came down the stairs and said things to me and leered, so I went back upstairs to hide.

Who would open my box? Who would take one book? A travel book! Are they going to Seattle too? WTF? I was afraid of the leering movers after that, so I called UPS and filed a claim. They were nice, and apologized - they are not supposed to leave packages at the front door of apartment buildings. After the movers finished and drove away, I went and peeked in the garbage for any sign of my book, the packaging, the invoice - any sign. I wasn't going dumpster-diving though, and I didn't find anything. So I have given up. I hope UPS takes responsibility. So angry-fying!

Alright, well. This is the 28th post of February, and while I didn't always post every day, I made up for it. And you know what? I enjoyed more frequent posting! So, I am going to attempt to keep it up. Not every day, maybe not on the weekends, but something more regular than once a week.

I'm pretty sure it was the movers. I mean, they are in and out of buildings and can easily help themselves to packages and never be seen again. My neighbors are nice people, and not the sort to open other people's packages and steal from them.